A Hong Kong man contesting a HK$180,000 (US$23,090) harassment claim by his former domestic helper has denied making persistent requests for sexual favours and maintained the worker seduced him into “committing crimes”.
The Equal Opportunities Commission filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Indonesian helper last year, accusing retired tattoo artist Lam Yui-sang of humiliating her with a string of unwelcome advances during her employment in February and March 2022.
Lam denied the allegations at the District Court trial on Tuesday, claiming the helper offered to give him a massage at a price and appeared open to physical contact.
The employer insisted he did not ask the worker to do anything indecent for him as he would pleasure himself by visiting massage parlours that offered illegal sex services.
Lam proposed marriage and asked the helper for sex four days after she started working at his residence in the Kwai Shing West public housing estate on February 17, according to the plaintiff’s court filing.
Lam, who is single, allegedly offered up to HK$1,000 to the helper for sex with her.
The employer was also purportedly caught on tape chiding the worker for rebuffing his sexual advances and saying she should have been prepared for sex the moment she decided to work for him.
The helper lodged a complaint with the commission on March 11 that year after a police investigation concluded the case involved no criminal element.
The plaintiff’s legal counsel played in court a series of covertly-taken audio recordings that allegedly captured the complainant resisting Lam’s advances.
A male voice was heard in an audio clip dated February 21 saying, “I don’t have children, so I want a good helper to marry me and bear my child.”
The man added that he had a sexual relationship with a previous helper and maintained his requests were “unlike murder and arson”.
In another recording dated March 3, the man was heard cursing a woman, purportedly the plaintiff, and telling her to “return to farming ways in Indonesia” after his appeal for sex was rejected.
“If mister wants a baby, mister should get married but not sleep with me,” the woman said.
“What the heck? Why come here if you care for your body that much? I want to do it with you, it’s not like you haven’t done it before,” the man said.
Lam, who did not engage a lawyer, sidestepped questions about his background and past conduct while displaying a tendency to launch personal attacks on the plaintiff’s legal counsel during cross-examination in the witness box.
He claimed he had wrongly confessed to being the man in the audio clips when he applied for legal aid for the case because he “did not think carefully”.
The defendant stood by his written statement that the helper tried to seduce him on the first day of her employment by getting close to him while he was briefing her on her job duties.
“The female helper suddenly turned and took two steps towards me, and I hastily stepped back,” the man said in the statement. “I thought to myself: this woman wasn’t that simple, maybe she wanted to lure me into committing crimes?”
Deputy judge Joseph Vaughan will hear closing arguments from both sides on Wednesday before delivering his judgment.
